


was this a fairy tale

by fateaccompli



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Fairy Tales, I just want people to be less crappy to each other, Inner Dialogue, Running through the woods, before The Lesser Evil, when a princess is on the run what does she become
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26897350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fateaccompli/pseuds/fateaccompli
Summary: She had this idea once upon a time that this was a fairy tale. - Renfri, between the huntsman and Shrike.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	was this a fairy tale

**Author's Note:**

> Haven't written fiction in probably five years, so I'm putting my tricycle wheels back on. To quote one of my best friends: coming home.
> 
> To whom I say: Thank you for answering my questions and explaining things to me and talking about The Witcher.

She had this idea once upon a time that this was a fairy tale. Is that not what princesses with stepmothers who are factually evil are supposed to presume?

Of course, she thought as she walked purposefully through strange woods, someone may question her evaluation of the situation: “Renfri, was she objectively evil? Or is that just because she’s opposed to you?”

No one ever asked that about fairy tales. Especially after the stepmother made the first move. They said she, Renfri, was a threat to the realm. Perhaps this wasn’t a fairy tale.

But of course the castle behind her was bespelled with human magic within an inch of its concrete and she was following a trail of bread crumbs through the wood. A monster lay behind her and…

Just ahead a howl seemed to resonate way up high against the moon so that the wild struck her almost physically. She froze in response with one hand against the side of a large tree, native instinct balder than a nerve.

All she was missing was the glowing green fairy dust.

Surely it wouldn’t hurt to rest. She almost sat on an oak stump only to just notice the ring of mushrooms around it. Her skirt had almost touched wood. Standing up abruptly, she clicked her tongue. A trap or nature?

Did it matter? It hadn’t caught her. She was just awful tired of dodging death threats, let alone attempts. What was even the point?

So she sat on the forest floor instead; her clothes were dirty enough anyway. She’d been on the run since just before afternoon tea, since she escaped the huntsman. Or he let her go.

Renfri mulled on that a little. How did it go? How had all of this gone? His pants had been off - he had tried, but she remembers more of the running away than from what she had run.

Someone would ask, surely - or at least she would deliver. Did the people ask fairy tale princesses to explain what led them to shear their hair off? Or why strange women with stranger baskets ask after them? Or why birds braid their hair? What did they say when the princess asked for help because her family was hunting her?

All she knew were fairy tales and war stories, when her great-grandfather had rode to - was it with or against Nilfgaard? Bother if she knew.

Gingerly, she checked her forearm, hissed when she poked the raw skin. At the beginning, her balance had been godawful, she had been so focused on getting away that she’d barely gotten through. The only thing worse was her lovely hair, which was less lovely and infinitely less valuable than it had been when she had not been running for her life. Lifting the yellow ends to her eyes, she peered at them critically under the moonlight. She would have to do something about this.

Dropping them for now, she considered the forest around her: dreadfully quiet but not still. If this was a fairy tale, animals would lead her to a cabin in the woods where she would confront and defeat great evil.

But, she couldn’t help but think, how many children are eaten by the witch before one pushes her into the oven? Which would she be?

Maybe the cabin could be a haven, where she could breathe easy and build a home.

But a cabin in the woods, for the rest of her days - was that how this was to end? How she was to end?

Maybe the animals - the monsters, the world was full of them, didn’t she know that? - would just eat her.

Another howl.

And here she was alone, without a dagger or a sword or anything sharp - she clenched her fists. She shouldn’t have just left the hunter, what a little _fool_ -

She made herself hold her breath briefly: one, three, four, seven, eleven. Just as slow she breathed out, unclenching one finger at a time until her hands were loose in her lap.

Fairy tales wouldn’t - couldn’t tell her future, she thought. They lived in their own universe, not in her castle or these woods, where things happened to people. Things had already happened to Renfri, and fairy tales didn’t have a place for her. She couldn’t - no, _wouldn’t_ wait for the right teller. None of them, including that rotten Stregobor, had done her right thus far and perhaps all that was necessary for right to triumph over such monstrosity was… it would just be a lesser evil. All she knew were fairy tales and war stories.

Isn’t that what war is?

It was time, she thought as she arose with her eyes cast to the stars, for a new voice.


End file.
